Egghead and Blockheads
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: September 17, 2011
“Sarah Palin, who got outraged at a “gotcha” question about what newspapers and magazines she read, is the mother of stupid conservatism. Another “Don’t Know Much About History” Tea Party heroine, Michele Bachmann, seems rather proud of not knowing anything, simply repeating nutty, inflammatory medical claims that somebody in the crowd tells her.
“So we’re choosing between the overintellectualized professor and blockheads boasting about their vacuity?
“The occupational hazard of democracy is know-nothing voters. It shouldn’t be know-nothing candidates.”
Cassi Creek:
Another Hunter-Garcia anthem springs to mind. Touch of Gray is about survival in adversity, about hope in the absence of cause, aging while the world goes to hell around you.
This is one of the few music videos I’ve ever really found worthy of the time spent viewing it. One reason for that is my belief that music associations should be formed by the listener, not by a marketing agency. “Touch of Gray” was well known and enjoyed by Dead Heads long before the video was put together. It really had nothing to say about the song that already been said at a hundred performances.
Elsewhere in the quoted article Ms Dowd, confess a bit of her past:
“The Republicans are now the “How great is it to be stupid?” party. In perpetrating the idea that there’s no intellectual requirement for the office of the presidency, the right wing of the party offers a Farrelly Brothers “Dumb and Dumber” primary in which evolution is avant-garde.
“Having grown up with a crush on William F. Buckley Jr. for his sesquipedalian facility, it’s hard for me to watch the right wing of the G.O.P. revel in anti-intellectualism and anti-science cant.”
While I had no romantic interest in Buckley, I appreciated his intellect and ability to carry on a conversation or a discussion in words of more than two syllables.
The quality of candidate and voter, the quality of the party has changed so markedly in the years since the candidacy of Stevenson and the back channel engineering of Buckley. We are now saddled with candidates who can’t recall, when asked, what they read. More likely is that they do not read.
“I see you've got your list outSay your piece and get out
Yes I get the gist of it
but it's all right
“Sorry that you feel that way
The only thing there is to say
Every silver lining's got a
Touch of grey”
There is a list. It’s written in the blood of the former middle class by the super wealthy financiers who fund the teavangelists, by the fundamentalist churches that want to repeal the 1st Amendment and create a theocracy, and by the power brokers who intend to destroy any last vestiges of an informed and aware voter base.
“Cows giving kerosene
Kid can't read at seventeen
The words he knows are all obscene
but it's all right
Kid can't read at seventeen
The words he knows are all obscene
but it's all right
Maybe not kerosene flavored milk, but certainly sell water that explodes into flame at the presence of a spark.
The kid can’t read, won’t learn to read. He’ll punch buttons with pictographs on a fast-food counter register or scan barcodes at Wal-Mart while Indian and Chinese engineers write the software that replaces words and people in the once United States.
Obscene words? Coming from the mouth of an avowed progressive American boomer? Condemning any words as obscene is just not in our character if we’ve freed ourselves from the talons of the fundamentalist Christian Taliban.
I listened to the cheers about the number of executions in Texas coming from the audience in Tampa at the teavangelist pseudo-debate. I also heard them yelling to let the uninsured die. Those are truly obscene words. There’s no other way to describe them.
From the party of Buckley, Eisenhower, and Goldwater, a swift descent brings the GOP to being the party of the poorly educated, religious fanatic, lacking in literacy mob of peasants brandishing pitchforks and crosses, unable to spell either their fears or their demands. I never supported the party of Buckley, but at least they could voice their own concerns, not relying entirely on “talking points” crafted by a graduate of the Goebbels Institute.
The previous election said a lot about the hope still extant in the political left.
“Dawn is breaking everywhere
Light a candle, curse the glare
Draw the curtains
I don't care 'cause
It's all right”
Light a candle, curse the glare
Draw the curtains
I don't care 'cause
It's all right”
“light a candle, curse the glare
“It is a clever play on the saying, coined by Adlai Stevenson in 1962 in reference to the death of Eleanor Roosevelt, that: "She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness..." That hearkens back to a time in my past, as well as Hunter’s and Garcia’s when we really expected the world to improve in quantum bounds, social concerns becoming as important as military concerns. Two generations of elected rulers have come since the Camelot days and the moon landings. Sadly, American students, and thus, American voters, have lost ground in comparison to the rest of the industrialized and on-line world with regard to reading, math, and science. In short, we are now collectively dumber than a mud duck. We are allowing the American version of the Taliban to call the shots.
“The shoe is on the hand it fitsThere's really nothing much to it
Whistle through your teeth and spit
cause it's all right.
“Oh well a Touch Of Grey
Kind of suits you anyway.
That was all I had to say
It's all right.
“I will get by / I will get by
I will get by / I will survive
We will get by / We will get by
We will get by / We will survive”
Hunter ends optimistically. Whether he’s right or not remains to be seen.
The touch of gray and the other signs of aging are expected. I’ll live with them; I have no choice but to do so. The rise in stupidity and theocracy are highly unwelcome and I don’t plan to surrender to the teavangelists and American Taliban.
I have endless hours of Grateful Dead performances on tape and CD. The band died with Garcia in 1995. The music and the hope continue on.
We will survive, if enough of us get off our asses and vote the teavangelist bastards out of office.
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